Pug Eats!

Is that really news? All Pugs eat, and rather too greedily. I promised that my next post would be a Pug Post, and this is it. It is all about what Our Pug Jonty eats. While lunching with a friend recently, she commented on the weirdness factor of my snowdome collection. As we continued to chat, the conversation came around to freezers, and what size would suit. I noted that there is a tidal effect in ours. Dog food gets cooked and put into plastic containers and frozen in bulk. As the tide recedes, the plastic container cupboard fills. Ebb and flow.


"What?" she said. You COOK for your dog????"

"Of course", I said, "doesn't everyone?" My estimated weirdness factor just went up a notch or two.


Well I really do know that most people serve up those tins, but my last Pug, the great Benny, got kidney stones in his old age. I swore that it was because of tinned food, and that Jonty would be better fed. It is quite easy, really, convenient, I know what he is eating, and it is cheap. So I am going to share my recipe, along with a picture of the Magnificent Jonty. See his gleaming coat? Not bad for an 11 year old elder statesman.

The Recipe

Put a large stockpot on the stove with a couple of litres of water. Start it heating.

Use your food processor to shred a carrot, a turnip, and a parsnip. Add in about 6 cloves of garlic (shred them too.) Garlic deters worms. Include sweet potato and pumpkin if you like. Add this to the water.

As it starts coming to the boil, put in some or all of the following, adjusting the proportions as you like:

6 hearts
a big piece of liver
6 lamb kidneys or a couple of ox kidneys
Some diced chuck steak
Half a kilo of chicken mince
Anything else you think would be good. It can be any combination of meat that is cheap and available. The above is just a suggestion.

When it comes to the boil, throw in two packets of pasta - I always think that the vegetable spirals work well, but truly, does it matter?

Then a packet of the secret ingredient - quinoa. It is high in protein, it has lots of good trace elements, it is GOOD FOR HIM1 - and it is good for us too.

Boil it up until it is all cooked, adding more water if you like. It shouldn't be too soupy.

Finally, chop a bunch of bok choy or other asian greens and add that. When it is wilted and cooked, only a few minutes, ladle the whole lot into plastic boxes and freeze it. It lasts us for months. Jonty thrives on it.

Is that weird? No, of course it isn't. Nothing is too good for Our Pug Jonty.

Next will be a sock post. They are coming along just fine.

It's finished, and it's me!

YAY! I finished the jumper yesterday, and it FITS! You may remember that I have knitted this jumper once before. It is Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran Tweed, and the pattern is Anya from a Jo Sharp book. The first time I knitted it to the end, sewed it up, put it on.... disaster. Way too wide, way too short, sleeves way too long. With the helpful advice of my cleaning lady, Gladys, who said it looked terrible, I unpicked it. Never before have I unpicked a whole jumper, but it had to be done. This time I went down a size in the pattern, made it longer and the sleeves shorter. And thanks to my daughter who advised testing the fit by using bulldog clips instead of pins - much faster and easier, and less painful. It was lovely to knit with, and knit up very fast indeed. I love the ribbing detail on the hem and the neckline, and also the interesting bell shaped sleeve. I'm very happy with it. So here I am, wearing it! It hasn't even been blocked or anything. I think people are going to see a lot of this jumper, as soon as it cools down enough to wear it.




What's next on the agenda. For his birthday, I gave my husband a certificate entitling him to one pair of hand-knitted socks. I have the wool. I have the fabulous sock book Julie gave me for Christmas. I have measured his feet (he enjoyed the process). I have EVEN KNITTED A SWATCH for the first time. The next knitting post will be sock progress. But my next post is going to be a Pug Post, so you know why my blog name includes The Pug.

It snowed at Christmas!

What? Snowing in Sydney in December? Yup, right here there was snow in abundance. Christmas is when I get my snowdome collection out and put it on display. There are only 63 of them, and during the year they live in a little chest where they don't need dusting. Christmas seems like an appropriate time to get them out for an airing, so here they are. They are from all over the place, as snowdomes are. The gold one you can see towards the right is really a sandstorm - inside there is a Pyramid and a Sphinx with gold glitter. From Egypt of course. The big red heart behind it comes from New York.


On this little table with the lava lamp there is a Nebraska one, right next to an Elvis from Graceland dome. The matchbox shape is a miniature kitchen scene from Mexico, an honorary snowdome.






People ask whether I have a favourite, and I confess, I do. It is the one right in front in this little group. You can't see it well, but it is my only double-sided dome. On one side there is a scuba diver with coral and shells and little fish, and on the other side is a leaping dolphin. Where do you think this piece of exotica comes from? Melbourne. Yes, Melbourne.

There are places we've been that don't seem to have snowdomes. Like Korea, home of an enormous amount of tacky souvenirs, but no snowdomes. I guess I could go to Global Shakeup and buy one (if they had one) but I wouldn't dream of doing that. And please, now that I've revealed my secret collection, don't give me any. The rule is that either Michael or me has to be there and buy it in person. And we might JUST have enough domes right now...

Stick to your knitting

Truly, I am still knitting. Or re-knitting. This is the jumper I knitted to completion, tried it on, and unpicked it. The pattern is Anya from the Jo Sharp Gathering book, in Silk Road Aran Tweed. It was one of the fastest jumpers I have ever knitted. Alas, however, it was way too short, way too wide, the sleeves way too long. Never have I had such a disaster in fit, and I have been knitting a long time. Gladys, my cleaning lady, was here as I tried it on again, and she told me what I already knew. It had to be unpicked. It was a shocker to unpick, and I have all these little balls for re-knitting.

I went a size down from the book. I knitted the front and back much longer. I have knit the one sleeve a bit shorter. As you see, I have one sleeve to go. A sleeve takes less than a week, depending on how often I pick it up and knit it. Very fast. Please keep your fingers crossed for me. I don't want to re-unpick nor re-knit. I want this jumper done so I can start on the socks I have promised my husband. Yes, I have the wool for them. I have a new sock book - Sensational Knitted Socks - a Christmas present from my daughter. I am ready for socks, but I am being strict with myself. The last sleeve must be done first.

Toys for Christmas - or - The Wireless Office

We've had a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and survived the great heat of yesterday. 44 degrees is TOO HOT! There were lots of new toys for Christmas, including a Nano iPod and a wireless router. Not to mention getting our fried computer back again, thanks to the Son-out-law. We must keep it on its other side to ensure that it gets enough air through it. Apparently it had suffered severe meltdown.

So isn't it fun to reinstall stuff (he'd saved all our data, thank you thank you) but there was much to reinstall, and much to replug. I know, I've blogged about big fat plugs before, but this time the subject is the Wireless Office. We have a wireless mouse, the digital camera, the e-book, the Palm, the iPod, a laptop, an ADSL modem, a wireless router so the laptop can be used outside in the garden or wherever. So how come all these things need all these wires? Here they are, you can see the mess we are in.

I've had SOOOOO much fun installing all this stuff, and it all now works. Except that I have no sound from the PC any more, nor any place to plug in the speakers. I'll fix that soon enough. And it took far too long to install the wireless router, because I didn't know I needed a dynamic IP address instead of a PPPoE, as was suggested by the documentation. Isn't it great to have a wireless office? As well as a paperless one?

And where do you think the Pug likes to sleep. You got it, he likes to crawl in and lie in amongst all those wires, on the big fat plugs where it is warm. Then he likes to lurch out with cords around his neck and his legs. Now that I have the camera connected (with its own cradle, its own USB connection, its own power source, I will be able to take a picture of him next time he does it. Provided, of course, that he doesn't get the camera cables around his neck and destroy the whole setup. Pugs are such fun.

Don't worry, as soon as I have the sound card I will bind all the cables up neatly using spiral cable binding stuff. And as soon as I have done that, I will need to unhook it all again for some other unforeseen catastrophe.

Pollyanna

I haven't blogged for AGES, and one excuse is that I have been a road warrior. Many trips to Melbourne and back. Once it took me seven hours, door to door. Storms closed Sydney Airport, so I was one of the lucky ones who did manage to get home. I have whinged and whined, carried on about how tough it is, so it came as a shock when a colleague described me recently as 'relentlessly perky.' It was meant as a compliment, a comment on how glad I always seem to be. This put me in mind of Pollyanna, one of my favourite childhood books. The other day I went straight to the bookshelf, where it can still be found, and opened it up. Soon I was as engrossed as ever, the story familiar and yet seen through my grown-up eyes for the first time. When did I read it last? Probably in my early teens. A long time ago. Sure, it was saccharine. And yes, Pollyanna is nauseatingly sweet with her glad game. But her determination to see the best in what you already have rather than wishing for something else is a great lesson. I read straight through it to the end, wishing I had the next in the series. Maybe Pollyanna did teach me something all those years ago.

I've got the world at my feet

I can hear you thinking.. here comes another sock post. But no, this post reveals one of my deep dark secrets. I have a weird fascination for manhole covers. Look down, everyone! Look at the world at your feet! Once you start, you realise how much variety there is, how much beauty. I started in Montreal, suddenly struck by the French words on the covers. I'd lurch into the middle of the road, camera pointed towards my feet, snapping happily. This was my first.

I soon discovered I was not alone. There are websites devoted to them. The wonderful site http://www.drainspotting.com/ includes a huge range of manholes. A colleague sent me a wonderful site from Japan , not to be missed. The same colleague sent me this little gem, from Virginia, USA.
Look closely - made in India!




















Some are so delightful in their simplicity. I can't resist including this one of a tree in Erskineville, the next suburb.





Worrk took me to Wellington, NZ, last week. It was a symposium on digital repositories run by the National Library of NZ. A free morning allowed a walk around Wellington, including one of my very favourite things to do - a ride up the cable car, with a walk down to the city through the wonderful botanic gardens and an historic cemetery. Naturally, my eyes are alert for manhole covers, and I was not disappointed. Several lovely examples have been added to my collection, and here they are:








Aren't they lovely? So next time you are walking around, look down and see for yourself these windows to the nether world. And remember, if you come to my house, you are likely to be treated to a slide show featuring manhole covers of the world. You have been warned.

Sockomania

Yay! As you can see from my proud photos, I have finished my very first pair of socks. This was from the Classy Slip-Up pattern in the book my daughter lent me, Knit Socks! by Betsy Lee McCarthy. I thoroughly enjoyed knitting them, once I got used to using five fine bamboo double pointed needles. What fun! Now I am looking at all kinds of other patterns, including some for gloves.

No no no, you MUST get back to knitting your pink fuzzy jumper. I promise I will .... no more projects until it is finished.

Another first this last week was our attendance at the Sydney Sity Klickers group, which meets nearby. We had a most enjoyable afternoon looking at magazines, comparing knitting and stash sizes, confessing unfinished projects and horror stories about felted knitting. We'll definitely go again. Several of us have blogs, including this one, who had a link to the most fabulous shawl which is making me drool.

No no no. Step away from that pattern. Go towards your pink fuzzy jumper now....

Our signature scent for summer

Spring is almost over, summer is coming on. The wisteria has bloomed, and the tree waratah is still in full glorious bloom in next door's garden. You can just see it behind the wisteria. The jasmine mingles with the wisteria, and the heat is rising.

My toes have emerged like white grubs from their winter sock cocoons (I'll spare you the pictures) begging for a shiny coat of pink nail polish.

Alex has been a bit strange(r) lately. He is always busy in his garden, and has been muttering things about a baby crocodile. He says if its mother appears, he'll be calling the cops! Alex likes height in his garden. I think it is to entertain his neighbours - he builds things up to fence height so we can all get the benefit of his artistry. So I really thought I ought to investigate this crocodile business, and got the camera out. This is what I saw:


















If you look closely at the first picture you'll see a pink dinosaur up on a pedestal, along with a couple of other plastic dinosaurs. In the second picture, peeking out from behind one of the pots, there is another plastic dinosaur - the fabled crocodile.

Alex saw me taking the pictures from his kitchen window, so he knows it has been immortalised.

But I haven't addressed the question I posed - what is our signature scent for the summer? I came across this phrase years ago when someone told me what her signature scent was. Florine was her name, and her Signature Scent was Red Door, by Elizabeth Arden. I was quite taken with the idea, but really I have too many different kinds of perfume and am much too flighty to have a single scent that expresses the ME. Until this year. And you know what it is? It also comes in a red package, spray or roll on. It is RID. Yes, the insect repellent. Because with the summer comes the flies, and this year is no exception. Trendy? Sexy? Effective? I just won't leave the house without it.

Love those legacies

When we needed a new computer, some while ago now, our Son-Out-Law offered to build one to our specifications. Oooh!

Make it fast with great graphics, so we can play The Sims at speed! OK, no problem.

Give us six or more USB ports so we can dangle peripherals all over it! OK, no problem.

Give us a 3 1/2 inch disk drive! Huh? Whatever for?? Said the SOL. Why don't you just use memory sticks? Because we still have old disks, and because we are old fogies. OK, he said, and found one somewhere. We have used it, and I am glad we have it.

Give us two serial ports! Huh? Whatever for?? Said the SOL. Because we have LEGACY TECHNOLOGY, that's why. He shrugged, and said OK, and the new beast was delivered as specified.

Now despite the waves of E-Bay frenzy and general de-cluttering, we still have our two electronic books hanging around. Two Rocket e-books - His and Hers. If you've never seen one, here it is:



(Note the Pug coaster - nearby there is a pug mouse mat too.) I've long had a thing for electronic books, having done a consultancy assignment on them once in the dark ages (1986). I spoke about them at conferences, talked about them, thought about them, had to have one. So a big part of me resisted the idea of ebaying them.

The Women's Library, where I am a volunteer, has a book discussion group. Being a huge fan of Willa Cather, I suggested one of my favourites for a forthcoming group - A Lost Lady. Where is my copy? Looking, looking. Uh Oh. Purged in the Great Book Purge of 2005.

Thinks - this book was published in 1923. Maybe it is available digitally? I look. It is. I download it. Thinks - I'll put it on my Palm using DropBook and Palm Reader. I do that, it works. Reading on the Palm is a little bit small though, and I remember the ebooks. I wonder whether they will still work? They'll need to be fired up to be ebayed (if I decide to do that.) Rootling around in all the electricals, both of them come to the surface. I plug the cables into the sneered-at dinosaur-age serial port, fire up the CD with its software, and turn everything on. It works. Both books are just fine. Not a glitch, not a configuration problem, nothing. I am stunned.

A Lost Lady is a fine book. I am reading it in bed with the backlighting set at 60%. Ain't technology grand?

Home alone

After the Iron Chef episode, the food story goes sadly downnill. The Man has gone overseas. It is just the Pug and the Cat and me. Our mission, and we chose to accept it, is to go through the packets and cans and Unidentified Frozen Objects to search and destroy.... or eat. Because I am both extravagant and parsimonious, it is the latter.

So, the last piece of frozen Christmas cake, which I made myself to my mother's recipe, was very expensive and reasonably good. Still a sliver to go.

The last half frozen bagel was breakfast with vegemite. The box of tofu mix - mixed, set, pressed, chunked, dusted with potato flour, deep fried in my quite good attempt at agedashi tofu. The Cottee's raspberry jelly. Jellied, eaten. Never much trouble dealing with jelly, especially Red Jelly.

The can of Chicken Tamales in green sour cream and chile sauce. Well, at least half of it. The other half will probably be compost tomorrow.

The last two lots of frozen bread turned into toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch. Carrots and celery and ginger and parsley, all juiced and drunk.

We are coming down to the wire. What about that packet of Four Cheeses sauce? The macaroni is waiting for it, but it is sure to be gluey and horrible. What about the besan flour that has been in the freezer since 1995? Or the Masa Harina in the freezer I brought back from Mexico? I managed to throw out the jar of tamarind puree - the mold was quite a work of art. The Quaker Instant Grits? No way. I'll eat grits no matter how old they are, and I have to keep them in case one day I have no grits at all (shudder }}}} )

The vietnamese rice paper wrappers? The iced over won ton wrappers? The Sara Lee croissants? ( I think I can deal with those, and they are only a couple of weeks old...) The marinated tofu wrappers? The Japanese sesame nori sprinkles? Some of those went onto a salad.

What was I saying about getting down to the wire? What will I do with the pomegranate molasses? I can't go on. What's that??? Lurking up there in the unreachable upper cupboards????? Oh no, it is instant red bean paste powder. I kid you not. There is a box there. Instant red bean paste powder. There were two sachets, now there is one.


See? The box says I will enjoy its great taste. The box says Step 3: taste great when served immediately.

Ummmmm - there is one sachet left. Ummmmm..........

Bang the gong, the heat was ON!!!

And did we ever have fun! We couldn't resist the opportunity to attend a dinner at Galileo's restaurant at the Observatory Hotel in Sydney featuring Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai. Having been Iron Chef fans for a long time, with a considerable investment in tapes and The Book, we just had to go. It was expensive, it was the middle of the week, Michael was leaving for overseas the next day, but what the heck!

Was it good? Was it worth it? Yes yes yes, it was fabulous. Eat your hearts out.... Here is the menu:


The first course was a series of little canapes:

Smoked salmon tartare, Oursin a la Printaniere (sea urchin roe - it is the little green cup) Beignets d'Huitres, Swordfish Brochette, Tartare of Venison, Endive a la Flamande. All with a Sakaitini cocktail.

Then came the Oeuf Cocotte a la Creme de Morilles et Macadamia Nut. Oh, divine. There was fresh truffle in there (this IS Iron Chef, after all) and the egg and the macadamias were (in high pitched voice..) sooo goooooood!

Then came Harry's (our nickname for Hiroyuki Sakai) Charlotte Mousse D'Asperges au Caviar. Yes, real caviar. And the little palisades of asparagus which Michael has tried with great success. Here he is enjoying it:


Valiantly onwards to Croquette de Foie Gras parfumee a la Truffe. Yes, truffles and foie gras. Ymmmmm. followed by Jewfish and Marron in potato wrapping, with a nori sauce and a vongole sauce. Moving right along to the spatchcock in a herb salt crust with mesclun salad. (yes, we have pictures of them all).

Finally the dessert, described as La fete des Berries, but as you can see, much more than that:

And the piece de resistance (sorry, I can't be bothered figuring out how to add accents to the French) - the chef himself came out to be photographed and rejoice in the good feelings engendered by the grand dinner. Alas, the group photo with the three of us was not achieved (we have dark video instead) but this proves we were there and we had a good time:
Did I say a good time? Try a GREAT time. Truly fantastic.

The people demand pictures

There should be some tatting in this picture, to illustrate the title of the blog. But for today the blog is just KnitPug. Here is my sock, in progress. Jonty is always close at foot.

AAARRGH!

No No No. When you are knitting with five needles, and are changing from one to the next, you use the EMPTY one. You DON'T pull one out of the stitches......

I'm Back!

Well, my mother told me she thought my blog was crap. Her word. But I think I'm over it now, and am ready to leap back into the saddle and continue my record of life in the inner city.

It has been a busy time for me. My mother stayed with me for a week (and I forgive her criticism of my blog), I went to the ETD2005 conference, I went to Canberra for two meetings. It has been busy. The ETD conference was fantastic, I really enjoyed it. Electronic Theses and Dissertations. This is the area I have been working in since February this year. As libraries move away from print to digital storage, there is much work to be done on how to store a university's research work digitally. I've been working with a project called ARROW, which is building a digital repository system based on Fedora's open source storage layer, with an application layer being designed by ARROW and built by VTLS. My role has been to do use cases and develop content models for theses, research papers, interface with End Note, and now I am working on access control. It is a logical extension of my career, which has spanned library and information technologies through print, online, CD-ROM, and internet. This is a fascinating project and I am lucky to be involved.

It has meant learning another language though. I came home from the conference one night babbling about some of the interesting things I'd learned and talked about. Mum and Michael told me to stop, they couldn't understand me. Talk English! they said. I said I should have gone to the Conference Dinner where people at least spoke the same language.

In the meantime, back on the knitting front, I succumbed to socks. I borrowed my daughter's sock book and some double pointed needles, bought some sock wool, and despite the unfinished jumper have launched into my first sock. Struggling with all those needles made me feel like I was knitting with an octopus - they wanted to go every which way. I had to cast on and start knitting four times, finally getting it right. It is starting to go quickly, and is very exciting. I can hardly wait to see the sock develop. Pictures will be posted.

Finally, Sunday morning wouldn't be right without the Sunday papers. And the Sunday papers wouldn't be the same without spelling errors. This morning's crop included these:

City steals itself in wake of latest Bali terrorist attacks

This is a reference to the people of Newcastle. There was a group of people from that city in Bali, and many of them were injured, some killed. It is also, I think, a reference to the fact that Newcastle used to be a centre of steel production. Did the journalist (Amy de Lore) mean City Steels itself? Which would have been correct. But how can a city steal itself? Ridiculous.

Next, in the property reports, we hear that it was a young couple who lent casually on a wall who won the auction. What? Lent casually? How do you lend on a wall? Was this a new form of finance? Do you think the journalist (Michelle Singer) meant LEANT on a wall? I think she did.

An update on Rachael

For those of you concerned to know more about Rachael, here she is, safe and sound. When she lived at Hello Gorgeous, she always liked to be in the window, with an outlook. She even used to have her own coat, quite a sparkly affair. She gave up her coat to a (real) cocker spaniel when she came to live with us. After her encounter with Jonty, she has taken up her post in our window, so she can keep an eye on the street. She seems very happy there, and Jonty hasn't spotted her yet. So all is calm in Rachael's world, and in Jonty's.

We are not sure yet whether there should be another encounter. Jonty does like having something to attack. He misses his bags of leaves. Huh??? Well, since South Sydney Council was swallowed up by Sydney Council, we no longer have human street sweepers gathering leaves into big bags. They used to leave them leaning against street poles. Jonty used to fix those bags with his beady gaze, then lunge at them, biting, shaking them, generally savaging them. Those bags sent him into a frenzy. Please don't ask me why, if I understood Pug Logic I'd be worried. He didn't like the human street sweepers either, and despite their attempts to befriend him, he always tried to bite them.

Now, however, we have little sweeping machines that go around scooping up the leaves (and there are many this time of year - the camphor laurels drop piles of their leaves in spring.) Poor Jonty misses the excitement. Rachael - come here......

Tio Alex and the Asparagus

Alex is our next door neighbour, and a source of many things - confusion, annoyance, amusement, weather reports, updates on real estate prices (especially of his own house) and masses of rotting vegetables. Michael has taken to calling him Tio Alex, which seems to wash over Alex like water off a duck's back. Or should that be a chicken's back? Alex sometimes refers to himself as Chicken Brain. We think this is a reference to something his brother once said to him about buying a house in our area, rather than somewhere more salubrious. Alex has been in this suburb for fifty years, and it is now becoming trendy and higher priced. Alex cackles at the idea that his place is worth as much as it is, and gleefully refers again to himself as Chicken Brain.

He's an old Italian, with not much English, but thinks of himself as the Padrone of the neighbourhood. He's extremely nosy, and always has an opinion. Most of the neighbours are wary of him, but he's harmless. He really should have been a farmer. When he was younger he colonised bits of spare land around the suburb, wherever he could make a deal, and would grow vegetables for the local fruit shop. Sometimes we would get some. As he gets older, he still has an arrangement with the fruit shop, but doesn't grow anything any more. The deal with the shop seems to be that he helps unload and pack stuff, and in return gets to take the older fruit and veg that don't sell. A couple of years ago we got quite a few trays of swiss brown mushrooms. I dried some, and some I put in jars preserved with oil. I gave him one of the jars. Next time I got trays of mushrooms, jars were included. Hmmm, subtle hint. He liked the mushrooms. I made them again.

The trays of stuff he leaves are a challenge for me. I get out my old book of jams and preserves. Sometimes I make pickles, or freeze what I can. I hate waste. But sometimes I am defeated. The stuff is too old, or I haven't got time to do anything with it. Here is the latest offering - a tray of asparagus. The label says it is fresh, but believe me, it isn't.


Asparagus jam? Asparagus chutney? Asparagus pickle? I don't think so. Aha! I know what I'll do with it. I cut all the plastic tape off the bunches...... ASPARAGUS COMPOST!

I wonder what will be next. Oh, and by the way, Jonty loathes Alex and tries to bite him whenever he catches sight of him. Alex seems not to mind, and asks when Jonty is going to get the needle. Alex thinks this is funny.

The joy of motherhood

It just makes me glow with pride. Like mother, like daughter. Mother leads the way, daughter follows (sometimes.) She has started her own blog and in it she displays her wonderful knitting talents. Look at those tea cosies! Don't they make you just drool? And the display of cabling makes me very happy.

So I have to counter with the progress I've made on the front of the re-knitted jumper. You see I haven't gotten very far, but at least it hasn't been abandoned. I've just cast off for the sleeves. Managed to make a mistake while gripped by the Ashes last night and had to rip some out, but have gotten going again. You may not be able to see well, but I'm using the Boyes knitting needles my Aunt Jane gave me. It took a while to get used to them, but I really like them. The way the knitting hangs makes it easier to deal with than stiff needles.

One of these days I am going to do a post with some of my favourite blogs, but for the moment you can enjoy Julie's, and perhaps this one. Over and out for now, back to work.

Katrina

I haven't blogged since the devastation in the Gulf States of the U.S. When I began blogging, I thought I would keep it light and frothy, amusing, entertaining. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I just couldn't do it. It didn't seem right to be so trivial.

On a plane home from a work trip to Melbourne yesterday, I travelled with a friend who also has a blog. We discussed this question. She encouraged me to write about my reactions. A blog is about life, and life isn't all amusing or frothy. There is the dark among the light. So I've been thinking about the words, and here goes.

You might be wondering why a girl from Sydney is so upset about it. It is a long way away, after all. But I am very upset. A couple of nights ago I went to bed, and burst into tears. "What's wrong" asked Michael anxiously. Earlier, we had been discussing our visit to New Orleans in June, 2004. We talked about things we had seen, such as the Aquarium, the Cabildo, Jackson Square. "That whole city" I sobbed. All those people, the buildings, inundated and ruined. I continued to cry remembering visits past.

My first visit to New Orleans was with my mother and my sister, way back in 1965. My mother's sister, my Aunt Jane, lived in Hammond, north of NO, and we were going to meet her, Uncle Bill, and our cousins for the first time. How exotic the US was for us Sydney teenagers. Louisiana was a strange place of misty Spanish moss, heat and humidity, and the city a fascinating mix. Coming from white Australia, the black faces around us were new and intriguing. We had our portraits done by a street artist in Jackson Square - I still have mine. We ate beignets and gumbo, we explored the attractions of the city. We drove across Lake Ponchartrain to Hammond, like driving across the ocean. We ate thin-sliced catfish at a stop along the way.

I visited again several times, always enjoying my relatives' company. In 1971 my sister and I again visited Hammond, Louisiana. Gwen had been living in London, I had visited her (you saw me in a previous post, wearing my fur coat during that vist). We travelled together from London to Hammond. We still have pictures of ourselves in the local newspaper. We were exotic to them too. There we were, on the verandah of the big old wooden house, wearing the latest in hot pants from Harrods, long flowing hair, dark smoky eyeliner.

I returned to Australia, Gwen stayed in the US and met her husband. She spent some time living in New Orleans, and still lives in hurricane-prone Florida.

Several more times over the years I've visited Aunt Jane and the family, so I've gotten to know the place. And last year's visit with Michael was to introduce him to that world. We stayed with Aunt and Cousin Jane near Baton Rouge, we met the next generation. We explored New Orleans and ate at Mona's Middle Eastern with Cousin Susan and other family members. We drove across Lake Ponchartrain. We drove around the city, down St. Charles Street, with its beautiful fretworked wooden mansions and the fabulous fern-covered arches of the oak trees.

So you can see my memories are strong, and they are fresh. I've made anxious phone calls and everyone is OK, the New Orleans contingent having evacuated. They don't know how their houses are.

I spend time on Google Earth, hovering anxiously over their addresses, trying to see what detail I can. I've sent the grainy pictures to them - the miracle of technology.

I've needed to write this, so I can go back to being (hopefully) amusing. My thoughts are still there, with them all.

Honey, I Ebayed the Pug!

No no, not really! But I'm getting close.... I have become an ebay addict. Selling and buying. I'm having such fun selling up all the old stuff around here. And even more fun buying red china - the Villeroy and Boch Granada china we have.

But let's back up. Being an acquisitive pack rat, I've bought a lot of stuff over the years. Living in a small house means there really isn't room for it all. Some of it I've outgrown (sometimes literally) and sometimes I've just moved on.

It started with a small music cabinet. It sold to someone with a music store in Kalgoorlie, it was trucked across the Nullarbor.








Then I had a couple of aboriginal bark paintings, which were fine in my office. But when I left that job I had nowhere for them. They certainly didn't belong in a Federation house. Off one went to Melbourne.










Then my daughter mentioned that clothes were a big seller on ebay. Aha, my chance to get rid of that 80's denim jacket with all the silver glitter on it. What was I thinking when I bought it? It went to Adelaide, to someone who LOVES it.






We bought a new LDC computer monitor. The old one went, for $5. Better than nothing, and it is out of the house. A new TV, ebay with the old. The new Palm Zire 71 - ebay with the old Palm Vx. Then a big wooden filing cabinet. Now that we have a built-in desk in the back bedroom it was surplus to requirements. Ebayed.

Now I'm having to dig deeper into the archive. The latest thing to go was the fur coat I bought in 1970. Here I am wearing it in 1971 in England. Alas, living in sunny warm Sydney gave me little opportunity to wear it, and I'm afraid I rather grew out of it. I am no longer 22 and quite that size. "I'll be that thin again if only I try" I think. For too many years I've been thinking that. I answered all the questions about its condition and took closeups of it and discussed postage. Finally, it sold for about what I paid for it all those years ago. Diane, in Wisconsin, will be receiving it soon. As I posted it today, wrapped in tissue paper in a big box, I must admit to being a little weepy seeing it go. I hope Diane will love it.


Now, what's next..... Looking looking around the house. I wonder what I'd get for an 18 year old cat? Portia, come here and let me take a nice photo of you.....